CHAPTER VTOTO SEES SOMETHING QUEER
Crouching down behind a green bush, Toto, the bustling beaver, kept very quiet and watched the tramps. He was not at all bustling now, however. He was not doing any work. Instead he was watching to see if the tramps were going to do any work.
But you know better what tramps are than did Toto. Tramps, as a rule, are men who don’t like to work. They are lazy, and wander about like gypsies, living as best they can, putting up an old shack or a bark cabin in the woods, as these tramps had done, boiling soup or stewing something in a tomato can over a fire in the woods. Those are tramps.
“I wish I could find Don to tell him,” thought Toto. “These must be the very tramps for whom he was looking.”
But though the beaver boy peered around among the trees he could not see Don. The dog was not in that part of the woods just then.
The tramps, however, were in plain sight. Some were stretched out on the soft moss beneaththe trees. Others sat in the doorway of the rough, bark house they had built, and still others were cooking something over a fire.
“What a lot of hard work they have to do to get something to eat,” thought Toto. “They have to make a fire, and fires are dangerous. I don’t like them!”
Well might Toto say that, for he had heard his father and Cuppy tell of fires in the forest that, in dry seasons, burned beaver dams and beaver houses.
“We never have to make a fire when we are hungry,” thought Toto. “And we don’t have to hunt for tin cans, to put in them our things to eat. When I’m hungry all I have to do is to gnaw a little bark from a tree, or eat some grass or some lily roots from the pond. I wouldn’t like to be a tramp. That would be dreadful. I’d rather be a beaver.”
So Toto watched the tramps. He saw them make the fire bigger, and noticed many of the ragged men holding over it tin cans which, later, they ate from.
Then, as the day was warm and sunny, all the tramps stretched out under the trees and went to sleep.
“Now would be a good time for Don to come along and scare them away,” thought Toto. “I wish he would. It isn’t good to have a camp oftramps so near our beaver dam. They may come and try to catch some of us.”
But Don, the dog, did not come, and after watching the ragged men for a while Toto thought he had better start back home. He stripped off some bark to take to his mother, who liked it very much, and then the bustling beaver waddled along until he came to a stream of water. Into this he jumped and swam the rest of the way, as that was easier than walking, or “waddling” as I call it, for Toto was rather fat, and he sort of “wobbled” as he walked.
“Well, did anything happen to you this time?” asked Mrs. Beaver, when Toto reached home.
“It didn’t exactly happen to me,” he said. “But I saw the camp of tramps Don was looking for.”
“Tramps! In our woods!” exclaimed Mr. Beaver, who came along just then. He was coming home to supper, having been at work with Cuppy and the others on the big dam. “Where did you see the tramps, Toto?”
The little beaver boy told his father, and that evening after they had eaten all the beavers gathered out on the big dam which held back the waters of the pond. It was a sort of meeting, and though it took place nearly every night, it was not always as serious as was this one.
On other nights the beavers gathered to talkto one another, the older ones looking to see that the dam was all right, and the younger ones, like Toto and Sniffy, playing about.
But this evening there was very little playing. After a few holes in the dam had been plastered shut with mud, which the beavers carried in their forepaws, and not on their tails, as many persons think, Cuppy whacked his tail on the ground. Every beaver grew silent on hearing that.
“There is no special danger just now,” said Cuppy, speaking to all the others. “I mean no tree is going to fall, or anything like that. But there is likely to be trouble. Toto, tell us about the tramp camp you saw in the woods.”
You may easily believe that Toto was quite surprised at being called on to sit up and speak before all the other beavers in the colony. But he was a smart little chap, and he knew that each one must help the others. So he told what he had seen.
“And now,” said Cuppy, “what is to be done? We do not want these tramps around here. Some of them may be hunters, and may try to catch us. Others may tear out our dam, and that would be very bad for us, as the water would all run out of our pond and our houses would be of no use. Now we must either drive these tramps away, or else make our dam so big and strong that they will not want to try to tear it apart.”
“How can we drive the tramps away?” asked Toto’s father.
“I don’t believe we can,” answered Cuppy. “If we were bears or wolves we might, but, being beavers, we can’t very well do it. The next best thing to do is to make our dam stronger. So to-morrow morning we must all—young and old who can gnaw trees—we must all cut down as many as we can and build the dam bigger. In that way we may be safe from the tramps. Now remember—everybody come out to cut down trees in the morning.”
“We can cut trees now, can’t we, Dad?” asked Toto of his father.
“Yes, you and Sniffy must do your share,” replied Mr. Beaver. “We must all help one another.”
The woods around the dam were a busy place next morning. All the beavers who were able began cutting down trees. Later the trees would be floated in canals to the big pond and made a part of the wall that held back the waters.
“Sniffy, do you want to come with me?” asked Toto of his brother, when the two boys had, together, cut down a pretty good-sized tree.
“Where are you going?” asked Sniffy.
“Farther off into the woods,” answered Toto. “I know where there is a nice, smooth, straighttree that we can cut down. It stands all by itself, and when it falls it won’t lodge in among other trees, so it will be easy to get out for the dam. Come, and we’ll cut it down together.”
“All right, I will,” said Sniffy.
Now Toto did not tell his brother that the tree he intended gnawing down was close to the camp of the tramps. Toto thought if he told his brother that, Sniffy might be afraid to go.
“But we can keep hidden from the tramps,” thought Toto, “and our teeth do not make much noise when we gnaw. The tramps will not hear us. Besides, I want to see if they are still there. Maybe Don has barked at them and driven them away.”
But when Toto and Sniffy reached the place in the woods where the tall tree grew, there was the bark shack in the same place, and some of the ragged men were still in and about it.
“Oh, look!” exclaimed Sniffy, catching sight of the tramps. “Who are the ragged men, Toto? Are they hunters?”
“No,” answered Toto. And then he told his brother who the men were. “But don’t be afraid,” went on Toto. “We’ll gnaw very silently, and the tramps won’t know we are here. These are the ragged men I told about at the meeting. But don’t be afraid, Sniffy.”
“All right. I won’t be afraid if you’ll stay with me,” said Sniffy. “Now which tree are we going to cut, Toto?”
The other beaver showed his brother the tree he meant, and Sniffy said it was a fine one.
“If we cut that down all by ourselves, it will help make the dam much bigger,” he said. “But we can’t cut it in one day, Toto.”
“No, nor in two days,” answered the other. “It may take us a week. But we can do it.”
After that, each day, Toto and Sniffy slipped off by themselves and went to the place near the camp of the tramps. There the two beaver boys gnawed and gnawed and gnawed away at the tree they were cutting down. And they worked so quietly that none of the tramps heard them.
One day the big tall tree was almost cut through.
“We shall finish gnawing it down in about an hour,” said Sniffy.
“Yes,” agreed Toto, “it will soon fall.”
“And shall we whack on the ground with our tails to signal for danger?” Sniffy wanted to know.
“We had better; yes,” agreed Toto. “We can’t tell but what some of the other beavers may be around here, though I haven’t seen any.”
So the two boy animals gnawed and gnawed some more, and soon the tree began to topple slowly to one side.
“There it goes!” cried Sniffy.
“Yes, it’s going to fall,” agreed Toto. “Whack with your tail as hard as you can! Whack your tail!”
Toto and Sniffy banged their flat tails on the ground. It was the beavers’ signal for danger. Then Toto and Sniffy ran and hid in a hollow place under a big stump. But they could look out and see the tree leaning over farther and farther as it toppled to the earth.
Suddenly Toto cried:
“Look! The tree is going to fall right on the place where the tramps live! It is going to fall on their house and it will be smashed!”
And so it was. The beaver boys had forgotten about the shack of the tramps when they gnawed at the tree. Now it was toppling over directly on the bark cabin. Toto and his brother were going to see something very queer happen.
“Bang with your tail! Bang with your tail, and give the danger signal to the tramps!” cried Toto.
And he and Sniffy whacked away as hard as they could.